Apocalypse Sooner or Later

How Trump has raised the risk of war around the world in just three short months

Ordnance specialists handle live bombs aboard the USS Harry S. Truman off the coast of Yemen. Credit: MCSN Michael Gomez/US Navy

We interrupt the rapid unscheduled disassembly of liberal democracy at home to take a look at how President Donald Trump has made the world a far more dangerous place—and war far more likely—in just three short months back in office. The danger and risk of conflict isn’t something that can be precisely quantified; like so many other statements about international affairs and security, it’s inherently a matter of judgment and argument. And while there’s certainly no broader plan or grand strategy at work here, it’s hard to see what Trump would do differently if he actively wanted to lay the groundwork for wars around the world.

Through word and deed, Trump has already rendered decades-old American defense pledges and security guarantees unreliable and incredible. He has no need to formally pull the United States out of NATO or any other American alliance or remove American military forces from allied nations. His zealous and servile courtship of Russian President Vladimir Putin, willingness to apply coercive pressure on Ukraine, and seemingly ingrained hostility toward America’s steadfast allies all combine to raise the risk of the sort of regional aggression that could well escalate to a wider general war—not just in Europe, but in the Pacific as well.

Trump’s tacit withdrawal of American security guarantees in Europe leaves the continent less secure and more vulnerable to aggression while calling into severe question the credibility of American alliances elsewhere in the world—especially in the Pacific. Worse, it makes adversaries like China and Russia far more prone to the sorts of rationalizations, miscalculations, and misperceptions that lead to war. In the absence of the United States in these regions, the powers that be in Beijing and Moscow may well perceive that they can achieve their long-held strategic ambitions through intimidation or outright force of arms.

Matters are most dire in Europe, where Trump’s rhetoric and actions have made abundantly clear that he would not honor America’s mutual defense obligations under Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. He and his administration have expressed hostility toward NATO and its member nations as well as the European Union over and over again, viewing them not as allies and friends but adversaries and, indeed, enemies. Vice President JD Vance, for instance, has taken multiple occasions to ignore or belittle the sacrifices these allies made fighting alongside the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumors constantly swirl that Trump may give up the post of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander—always held by an American—and pull American troops out of Eastern Europe altogether. Worse, Trump himself has repeatedly leveled threats against the territorial sovereignty and independence of Canada and Denmark—NATO allies who lost 159 and 50 soldiers, respectively, in the post-9/11 wars they fought alongside the United States.

Indeed, Trump’s attempt to bully Ukraine into capitulation to the Kremlin should leave America’s NATO allies no doubt that he would abandon them in the face of aggression from Moscow—or that he might try to use American leverage against them to secure a settlement favorable to the aggressor. After all, Trump suspended American military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv after ambushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an Oval Office meeting. Though this aid was later restored, the damage was done: Trump proved willing and able to halt aid to a nation under direct attack from Russia in an effort to coerce it into accepting a tacit surrender agreement. Trump even went so far as to blame Kyiv for Russian aggression, with the apparent assumption that Ukraine should’ve simply caved to Putin after his first threat. It’d be foolish to imagine he would not do the same if allied nations like, say, Estonia, Finland, or Poland came under attack by Moscow.

Trump’s obsequious attitude toward Putin stands in stark contrast with his consistent and chronic denigration of American allies. He and his administration offer the Kremlin concession after concession on Ukraine without asking for anything in return, while Trump obviously idolizes Putin and seeks to emulate him. Compare the fawning treatment he gives Putin with the hostile language he deploys against America’s “very nasty” friends and allies who treat the United States “very unfairly.” While he berates Zelenskyy to the Ukrainian leader’s face, moreover, he characterizes his long chats with Putin in friendly—if not glowing—terms.

It all paints the decidedly ugly picture of a president unwilling to defend America’s oldest and most stalwart allies—and willing to use whatever means at his disposal to undermine their defense should they find themselves victims of aggression and, indeed, aid the aggressor. Even if NATO itself survives the next four years, it’d be more than reasonable if America’s NATO allies to conclude that Article V is a dead letter until Trump leaves office.

That leaves frontline NATO allies—countries like Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—vulnerable to pressure, coercion, and outright aggression from Moscow. Without an American security guarantee, these nations would become targets that the Kremlin may find too tempting to pass up given its oft-stated geopolitical intentions and ambitions. Despite what ought to have been a sobering experience in Ukraine, Moscow likely underestimates the likelihood and depth of European resistance to possible Russian aggression—even in the absence of American material and diplomatic support. Such a severe miscalculation, one we’ve already seen the Kremlin make, could result in a large-scale conventional war in Europe, a conflict that could escalate to a nuclear exchange.

Even a relatively bloodless Russian subordination of Eastern Europe would grievously harm American interests. Such a scenario would cause disruptions even more severe than those wrought by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beyond such immediate consequences, the United States would face a more powerful Russia that’s better able to menace the rest of Europe through the threat or actual use of force. It’s precisely the sort of geopolitical nightmare the United States has sought to avoid for a century, one that prompted America to intervene in two world wars: the effective domination of one of the world’s economic and industrial centers by a power hostile to the United States and liberal democracy.

But what happens in Europe won’t stay in Europe: Trump’s callous disregard for America’s NATO allies and clear sympathy for Putin’s aggression hasn’t gone unnoticed elsewhere. It’s bound to reverberate around the world, nowhere more so than in East Asia and the Pacific.

While the credibility of America’s commitments to its Pacific alliances has not yet been damaged the same way it has in Europe, Trump’s willingness to slap irrational tariffs on Australia, Japan, and South Korea ought to serve as a warning sign and strategic shock for these loyal, long-standing American allies. It would only be prudent for these nations not to count on the United States under Trump to come to their aid in the event of armed aggression against them.

Indeed, Trump has already broached the possibility of a grand bargain with China, speaking warmly about his personal rapport with Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. He has, by contrast, threatened tariffs on Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing industry and demanded Taipei pay the United States protection money—all while suggesting that he would not defend the island democracy if China were to attack or invade it, an insinuation made all the more credible by Trump’s obvious animosity toward Ukraine in his first three months in office. If Beijing truly is preparing its military to be able to take Taiwan by 2027, as the U.S. military and other national security institutions believe, then Trump’s actions give Xi all the more reason to give the order to invade—or try and convince Trump to sell out Taipei given his fondness for dictators and distaste for democracies.

With his pattern of hostile rhetoric and antagonistic behavior toward America’s NATO allies in Europe, moreover, Trump has implicitly called into question America’s alliance commitments in the Pacific as well. If NATO allies can’t count on the United States under Trump, why should Japan or South Korea or Australia—much less Taiwan, a de facto nation with a weaker American security guarantee? Without a reliable United States to shore up resistance when confronted with a China willing and able to coerce or threaten them with armed aggression, these allies may find it easier to simply accommodate themselves to Chinese domination of their own backyard.

Suffice it to say that such an outcome would not advance the interests of the United States or freedom in the world. But it’d be unwise in the extreme for our Pacific allies to look at Trump’s words and actions on NATO and Ukraine and refuse to imagine the same could happen to them should Beijing decide to flex its economic or military muscles. Instead, they should—rightly—assume the same sort of faithlessness Trump has shown toward America’s European allies applies to them as well and act accordingly.

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By fawning over dictators and casting severe doubt on America’s alliances, President Trump has raised the risk of war and made the world a far more dangerous place than it was when he took office a mere three months ago. Matters are only likely to deteriorate further as long as Trump remains in office, possibly up to and including the outbreak of actual general war in Europe or the Pacific—or even both. Trump has made America’s erstwhile allies in these regions far less secure while providing aggressive dictators like Putin and Xi with every incentive to roll the strategic dice and take advantage of the singular opportunity his presidency represents.

That’s not even taking into account other parts of the world like the Middle East, where Trump has ramped up an existing air campaign against Yemen’s Houthi militants and threatened Iran with military action. Or Latin America, where Trump has reportedly ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans to seize the Panama Canal while top administration officials have mooted potential military operations against drug cartels in Mexico. Indeed it certainly seems like Trump wishes to validate Putin’s aggression in Ukraine in order to sanction his own designs on America’s neighbors and allies.

To be clear, there’s no grand plan or strategic logic here; Trump’s foreign policy remains as unbound by reason the rest of his presidency. But reopening Europe and East Asia to geopolitical jockeying and potential domination by gangster powers like Russia and China remains by far the most alarming and dangerous accomplishment of Trump’s foreign policy, one achieved just a little more three months into his second term. The damage done will only deepen with time, as Trump and his administration say things that can’t be unsaid and take actions they can’t easily take back—even if they wanted to do so.

America fought in a pair of titanic and bloody world wars to prevent this outcome and ensure that these regions would never again threaten American interests or freedoms. Yet for reasons unbeknownst to me and likely a good deal of others, we seem to have forgotten this fact. It’s hard to understand just why, exactly—perhaps the passing of those cohorts who fought against global gangsterism—but we’ve grown complacent and taken our own freedom and security from threats overseas for granted.

For his own appalling part, Trump has begun to throw the sacrifices made by earlier generations of Americans away for no good reason whatsoever—and raised the terrifying risk of major war along the way.